This charity targets specific projects which will improve the health and education of the people of Afghanistan.

The charity is led by Dr Sarah Fane and advised by trustees and patrons who are professionals in medicine, education and overseas development.

Monday, 8 October 2012

Girls cricket camp in Kabul

Today was our Girls cricket camp in Kabul. Our day
started in the compound car parkwhere
we unloaded 2 Land Rovers full of cricket kit, laid it out and sorted it in to
piles of kit to distribute to the schools where we have built pitches and to
the girls camp today.

We had to move schools for the camp location at the last
moment and having arranged for the Ambassador to come and hand out thekit, which had been collected together by
Simon Batty, who works at the Embassy, and for the BBC to film in celebration
of International Girls Day, the logistics were a worry. Even on our way, I had
a whole lot of calls from the Embassy about a violent demonstration about the
change of name for Kabul University, and wondered if it would all go
ahead......but it did!

We arrived at the school after a little time lost in the
back streets of Kabul. It is in a Hazara area of the city. The Hazaras have
suffered terrible persecution during theyears of war. They are much more progressive than the Pashtuns as
regards female education andso it was a
good area in which to hold the camp.

After all the worries, it was so uplifting to see these
girls out in cricket kit, receiving coaching from a former Afghan national
team player...a hero! He was assisted in his coaching by 2 fantastic girls who
we coached last year and who are talented cricketers. Phillip Hodson, President
of the MCC, was there bowling to the children and helping with batting skills. It is such a total pleasure, and so rewarding, to see so much joy.

The BBC arrived and Andrew North did some interviews with
the girls and was soon surrounded by girls longing to be on camera and to talk
with him. These girls are so friendly and determined and we all felt uplifted
just through talking with them.

The Ambassador arrived amid tight security and handed out
bats to the children and was interviewed by the BBC. The girls thanked us so much and begged us to return.
What a day!

Inspired by a gap year working in rural India, Sarah Fane decided to switch from her degree course in French and Latin to study medicine at Bristol University. Her elective was spent in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, where she met with the Guildford Surgical Team. She returned with them the following year to Pakistan, and worked from a Mujahideen border camp, seeing female patients from the surrounding refugee camps.
Ten years later, having married, had four children, and done various in hospital jobs between children, she was asked to go to the Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan, to assess a mother and child clinic. The visit and the people she met inspired her to set up this charity.